1881. 1 on the Visionts of Sane Persona. 649 



was felt in couvorting it into the cross-bow and thus returning to the 

 starting-point. 



I have a sufficient variety of cases to prove tlie continuity between 

 all the forms of visualisation, beginning with an almost total absence 

 of it, and ending with a ccmipleto hallucination. The continuity is, 

 however, not simi)ly that of varying degrees of intensity, but of 

 variations in the character of the process itself, so that it is by no 

 means uncommon to tind two very ditferent forms of it concurrent in 

 the same person. There are some who visualise well and who also 

 are seers of visions, who declare that the vision is not a vivid visual- 

 isation, but altogether a ditferent i:>henomenon. In short, if we please 

 to call all sensations due to external impressions " direct,'' and all 

 others *' induced,'' then there are many channels through which the 

 *' induction'' may take place, and the channel of ordinary visualisation 

 in the persons just mentioned is different from that through which 

 their visions arise. 



The following is a good instance of this condition. A friend 

 writes : — 



" These visions often appear with startling vividness, and so far 

 from dej^ending on any voluntary effort of the mind, they remain when 

 I often wish them very much to depart, and no effort of the imagination 

 can call them wp. I lately saw a framed portrait of a face which 

 seemed more lovely than any painting I have ever seen, and again I 

 often see fine landscajjcs which bear no resemblance to any scenery I 

 have ever looked uj)on. I find it difficult to define the difference 

 between a waking vision and a mental image, although the difference 

 is very apparent to myself. I think I can do it best in this way. If 

 you go into a theatre and look at a scene, say of a forest by moonlight, 

 at the back part of tlie stage, you see every object distinctly and 

 sufficiently illuminated (being thus unlike a mere act of memory), but 

 it is nevertheless vague and shadowy, and you might have difficulty 

 in telling afterwards all the objects you have seen. This resembles a 

 mental image in point of clearness. Tlie waking vision is like what 

 one sees in the open street in broad daylight, when every object is dis- 

 tinctly impressed on the memory. The two kinds of imagery differ 

 also as regards voluntariness, tbe image being entirely subservient to 

 the will, the visions entirely independent of it. They differ also in 

 point of suddenness, the images being formed comparatively slowly as 

 memory recalls each detail, and fading slowly as the mental effort to 

 retain them is relaxed ; the visions appearing and vanishing in an 

 instant. The waking visions seem quite close, filling as it were the 

 whole head, while the mental image seems further away in some far-off 

 recess of the mind." 



The number of persons who see visions no less distinctly than this 

 correspondent is much greater than I had any idea of when I began 

 this inquiry. I am permitted to exhibit the sketch of one, prefaced 

 by a description of it by Mrs. Haweis. She says : — 



" All my life long I have had one very constantly recurring vision, 



